Robots and their place in teh world

http://www.comics.com/comics/diesel/archive/diesel-20080704.html

Diesel Sweeties summarizes an interesting idea I first ran across from Marshall Brain, the howstuffworks guy. In 'Manna' he discusses some ways that we might end up using robots. One is to free ourselves, the other is to enslave ourselves.
Marshall Brain has some good ideas, but also some bad ones. He leans a bit too much toward "going after those bastard fat cats that steal from the common man".

The commie dream may be obtainable using robots. That way, everyone gets to be leadership that profits off of the masses, the masses being robots.

I'm not betting on the commie dream, or it removing money/greed, but I wouldn't mind more folks working on fulfilling work to better mankind.

The transition will probably be rough, I should look at the grocery store cashier and airport ticket agent employment.

Wall-e also explored this concept, with all of the humans being fat beings that just consumed. Consumed food, fashion, and widgets while hovering on robots that moved them around.

If we start displacing workers with robots, but don't have anywhere for them to go, we will eventually run into social unrest. Remember, I am not just talking about physical robots that look humanoid, I am talking about the robots you use every day. yes you! Google. Amazon. Most of the interwebs.

Bet on humanity, we rock.

Counter Intuitive Results about Terrorism

I was reading an interesting paper today, "Modeling Jihad: A system Dynamics Model of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat Financial System", and ran across some interesting points.

1. Most terrorist groups will be in a slow decline until they disappear. The capability of the population to donate to the cause can swing the group around increasing in strength. As noted in the paper, this influences the government's choices on what they can do. Counter intuitively, improving the economic conditions for the poor can serve to strengthen a terrorist group. Say the bottom 10% of the population donates and supports the cause. They can donate 10% of their income which is 100 madeupdollars for the 10% of the population. If you increase their economic conditions, lets say by doubling income, then they can donate 20 madeupdollars vs 10 madeupdollars from before. This might strengthen the terrorist group, but probably won't push it toward growth.

You would have to improve conditions by 2x, but then also halve the support to have the terrorist group stay the same (assuming that strength directly correleates with money)

2. Stopping a terrorist group from extorting money may also be a bad idea. The one thing that seems to switch people fairly quickly to being against terrorists is being mugged by their agents. No extortions means that people can keep supporting them with no ill effects to themselves. The report concludes that it is better to dry up other funding streams first, and let the terrorist actions convince the population.

You actually saw this in Anbar, Iraq. The people decided that AQI was no fun, and the alternative (US) was slightly more fun.

Peachtree Roadrace

Sara, Andrew Howard, and I ran the Peachtree Roadrace (10k) this year.

I don't have any pics, but if Andrew can figure out how to get pictures off of his phone, we will have some.

It was a fun race. We kept the same pace (+- about 1 min) the whole race, 13:39 min/mi. Total time was 1 hour 24 min, 41 seconds.

It was nice seeing all the people that came out on the side, many families cheering Mom or Dad along. Bands were playing and the weather was nice. Definitely got to see peachtree from a different angle and enjoy the city.

First time that I forgot that I was running, and just had fun. It was longer than any run that I have done, and the running became something in the background, like breathing. That was cool.

Concealed Carry in GA

I couldn't believe the headline on Yahoo today, it was not accurate at all. Link leads to the article that I arrived at from the highlighted link in the following screenshot. Article
GA law has legalized concealed weapons for a long time. I have had my concealed carry for over a year. They modified the law to clarify its intent and expand upon areas where carrying is legal.

The lawsuit has been filed because the city/airport has decided that people can not carry in the airport. The argument is about if you can carry up to the security checkpoint or not.

I think it is sort of silly. You can check a firearm in your luggage. That means that you have to take it through the airport. I suppose they think that a teleporter exists, where you send the firearm to a baggage claim. Realistically, thats a silly argument on my part, because it has to be unoperable and in a locked container and all of that. At any rate, then the only people that would legally carry at an airport would then be people meeting someone or picking someone up.

In the end, the state law trumps any local laws. The state preemptively claimed jurisdiction about gun laws and prohibits county or municipal groups from regulating firearms. They can issue as many proclamations that they want. A similar case ended in a summary judgment about carrying in city parks.
A telling quote:

GeorgiaCarry.org's attorney cited law, which says "No county or municipal corporation shall regulate in any manner? possession ownership, transport, (or) carrying? of firearms."

The full quote from GA Code 16-11-184:

(b)(1) No county or municipal corporation, by zoning or by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall regulate in any manner gun shows, the possession, ownership, transport, carrying, transfer, sale, purchase, licensing, or registration of firearms, components of firearms, firearms dealers, or dealers in firearms components.

I took the time to find the link for you to read law, something that journalists never seem to do (where does it say that parking lots are off limits? (update, its in the case law or so a forum says, I couldn't find it. I did find something else, but they didn't say it was illegal in the parking lot, it just wasn't relevant to the murder case see case law... it shouldn't be that hard to verify what a journalist says)). GA Code 16-11-184

Any time you are citing law, I would argue that you might be on the right side. Change the law or follow it. Making up your own laws is not an option in the United States. Sometimes though, you might find a nice little grey area, see below.

As I was researching this, I came across that you can not carry in publically owned buildings. They may be able to enforce this ban. BUT then! HB 89 (which came into effect today) comes to the rescue in 16-11-127 e)

(e) A person licensed or permitted to carry a firearm by this part shall be permitted to carry such firearm, subject to the limitations of this part, in all parks, historic sites, and recreational areas, including all publicly owned buildings located in such parks, historic sites, and recreational areas and in wildlife management areas, notwithstanding Code Section 12-3-10, in wildlife management areas notwithstanding Code Section 27-3-1.1 and 27-3-6, and in public transportation notwithstanding Code Sections 16-12-122 through 16-12-127; provided, however, that a person shall not carry a firearm into a place prohibited by federal law.

where you can carry in public transportation, unless prohibited by federal law.

GA Code 16-12-123 has parts that have been repealed by HB89, specifically b).

So, you can't carry in public buildings, but you can carry on public transportation as long as you don't break federal law. I would think that a judge would find it against the spirit of the law if MARTA decided that you could not carry in the MARTA terminal. That would effectively bar you from carrying in public transportation. Not really sure what happens there though.

We also need to hold journalists to a higher standard. Headlines need to be correct. Facts need to be checked. With this new fangled thing called 'teh interwebs' which is made of a series of tubes, we can now provide links to relevant things in stories. We can link to law, if the article is taking about it. We can provide a link to where to buy or see any studies, books, or reports that an article talks about.

Web Browser usage as a predictor of the Gap

Firefox 3 pledge map vs. the Pentagon’s new map

One interesting quote that I found:

Non-Integrated Gap countries with the most pledges are Iran, Turkey, Venezuela, Peru, and Indonesia – interesting list. Seems to suggest that many of the countries the US tries to isolate are actually the most connected.

We have to do something with Iran, but I am becoming less and less convinced that bombing them is going to work. If we have to use military force, I would say a blockade would have the desired effect with the best ROI. We need to engage the Iranians and figure out a way to work with them.

They seem to lack many of the labor issues of other nearby countries (see previous post) and already have decent local industry (largest car production in the middle east, could be because of their relative population size (~70 million (more than Saudi Arabia + Iraq + Jordan combined)), but its still something). The car production is 4% of GDP and matches Australian or Thai output. They even are exporting cars/production to Venezuela.

Messed up economy due to too much government interference, but isn't that the problem in most places. If we could help them curb their "death to infidels" urges, we might be able to help turn the country around to a productive member of the world economy. I'm thinking that China will beat us to this.

Jobs and perceptions

I am feeling blog-y as of late, it seems.

When the Minister Becomes a Waiter

The population of Saudi Arabia needs to change some of its perceptions about different jobs. Things like this minister becoming a waiter in Fudruckers seem sort of silly, but are vital.

Jobs and proper education are what is going to solve the global islamic terrorism problem, not bombs. Importing low wage workers to do work like being a waiter is no longer feasible in Saudi Arabia, and using local young jobless males is going to help solve the problem of idle angry frustrated males.

Someone needs to do each and every kind of work, don't look down on anyone solely because of their job.

Unless they help port VSIPL to GPU architectures.

zing.

Truces and Sovereignty

Hamas says it will not police truce with Israel

I love the first quote:

The militant group Hamas said it remains committed to a cease-fire with Israel, but will not act as Israel's "police force" in confronting militants who breach the truce.

I am confirming my original suspicion that Hamas had no clue about what it was getting into when it won the election. Hamas is the elected government of the West Bank and Gaza (but only recognized as de facto sovereign over Gaza). It gets more complicated, because no state except Israel has claim to the West Bank (as occupier), but thats better saved for another time. I'm going to simplify things a bit and just say that Hamas runs Gaza and attempts to lay claim to sovereignty there.

I'm a fan of de facto sovereignty, as what is higher than a state right now that can enforce the de jure? I suppose only other states or 'superpowers'. As it stands, the Hamas vs Fatah government spat really has no significance in Gaza. Hamas is supposed to be in charge and fought for control. Israel accepted the de facto rule of Hamas over Gaza and negotiated a truce with them. (Last week or so)

Coming to recent (last few days) events, some rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. This was after the truce. I see that Hamas wants to have it both ways. They want to be the de facto and de jure government of Gaza. As the government they wanted to be able to negotiate truces and treaties. But, they also do not want to be responsible for their citizens. They do not want to 'police' their own people. The way I see it, either they broke the truce because they condone and do nothing to stop the rocket attacks, or they are not the de facto government of Gaza. I am not saying that they can stop every attack as that would be impossible. What they can do is not proclaim that it is not their problem. As the people in charge, it is their problem.

Imagine (you have to try really hard) that Bush just negotiated a promise to not attack Iran if they stopped their nuclear weapons activities. Blackwater (everyone's favorite PMC to hate on) decides to invade Iran. The United States would most likely use its own military or civilian measures to stop Blackwater. In that case, we would be allied with Iran against rouge elements based in our country. We would take care of Blackwater because their actions undermine US national interests (remember, we made a truce) and also undermine US sovereignty.

Hamas needs to step up. They need to hold "a rifle in the face of a resistance fighter." even if it doesn't make any one "enjoy a happy moment". That is part of the responsibility of governing a group of people.

Update:
I found a perfect word to describe Hamas and a few other groups that have elections that don't mean anything. Anocracy.